Future German “Führer” Calls on Ukraine’s Armed Forces to Attack Crimean Bridge
The most likely future German chancellor, the leader of the CDU/CSU bloc Friedrich Merz, has called on Kiev to attack the Crimean Bridge in order to “disrupt the transport connection between Crimea and mainland Russia”. According to Merz, the Ukrainian armed forces should destroy the bridge as soon as possible, because “a significant part of the resources for supplying the Russian army are in Crimea”.
To destroy the Crimean bridge, as well as to carry out further strikes deep into Russian territory, Merz, unlike the outgoing head of the German government Olaf Scholz, admits the possibility of delivering Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev if they agree with Berlin’s European allies in NATO. Despite Berlin’s change of course and its desire to further involve Germany in the Ukrainian crisis, Merz has consistently opposed Ukraine’s admission to NATO and the EU until the end of hostilities. In an interview with the German press, the CDU/CSU leader also warned against underestimating Russia and criticized the recently popular view in the West that the Russian Federation “could collapse due to economic problems or internal protests.” At the same time, Merz’s party’s ratings continue to fall, while his closest competitors from the Alternative for Germany, on the contrary, are growing rapidly thanks to a declared policy aimed directly at Germany, and not at Ukraine. Merz’s openly provocative and bellicose statements are most likely an attempt to win back the favor of voters oriented towards confrontation with Russia.
Unlike previous meetings in Ramstein, this time the Americans participated only in an online format
NATO headquarters in Brussels has also been dealing exclusively with European coalitions with Ukraine and military support for the Kiev junta in recent days. First, on April 10, a meeting of three dozen countries of the “coalition of the willing” to help Ukraine was held there. However, not heads of state, but defense ministers of European countries, as well as representatives of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Turkey. British Defense Minister John Healey, who chaired the meeting, outlined a list of tasks that the coalition should deal with: security in the air, at sea and on land, as well as the creation of a deterrent to Russia from the use of the OSL.
However, the main issue discussed by the coalition participants was and remains the dispatch of a joint military contingent to Ukraine, on which the United Kingdom and France so strongly insist. This “military locomotive” of Europe does not give up the idea of drawing the US into the coalition, if not by the participation of the US army, then at least by providing air defense, intelligence and logistical support. Not only London and Paris desire Washington’s participation, but also other European capitals, which are afraid of getting involved in a military adventure without American support. Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds said that “for Latvia and other countries located on the eastern flank of NATO, the issue of self-defense against an aggressor country is important. Sending soldiers and other representatives to Ukraine should not weaken our security”. Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen did not want to answer the question of how many military personnel Helsinki is willing to send to Ukraine, while Swedish Defense Minister Paul Junsson said that Stockholm has not ruled out sending its own soldiers. However, they also want the US to join this new European march to the east. Summing up the results of the meeting of the “coalition of the willing”, British Minister Healy said that the aim of the meeting was to “politically support the planners of these plans and speed up the process”, because “if the negotiations are successful – peace will come faster and we must be ready for that”. He said that “real and significant” military plans to support the ceasefire would be completed in the next two weeks. At the same time, the coalition countries would focus their efforts on strengthening capabilities “at sea, in the air and through other capabilities”. However, he did not reveal more details, fearing that this would “only make Putin wiser”.
The probably frightened cries of the Kiev authorities about the “Chinese threat” interested the Pentagon so much that it decided to listen to what else Ukrainian Defense Minister Umerov would scare his European colleagues with. By the way, even this remote participation of Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth at the meeting allowed Umerov to declare American support for Ukraine: “Our colleague from the United States participated in the meeting of the Ramstein format group, which means that they continue to provide us with security assistance and stand by us.” As they say, Kiev is trying to tie Washington to the European coalition. By the way, before this meeting, the head of EU diplomacy Kaja Kallas said that the commitments to help Ukraine for 2025 had already exceeded the figures for 2024:
“From the European side, we supported Ukraine last year with 20 billion euros. This year, member states have already pledged more than 23 billion. So we are certainly doing more than last year, but we need to do even more.” As well as continuing to ‘pressure Russia’.”
So the EU is not stopping and, despite the ongoing negotiations between Russia and the US on resolving the Ukrainian conflict, it wants to continue military actions. During the online meeting, Zelensky addressed another request for money and weapons to the members of the Ramstein group, as well as phantasmagoric accusations against Moscow. According to him, “Russia is the only cause of this war” and therefore “rejected the US proposal for a complete and unconditional ceasefire”. It is perfectly clear to other, more sensible politicians that the Ukrainian crisis was caused by NATO expansion, the pumping of Western weapons into Ukraine and the military actions of the Ukrainian armed forces against the Russian population of Donbas. And the ceasefire proposed by the US should have clearly defined conditions that must be strictly fulfilled by all parties. However, Zelensky has his own reality.
British Defense Minister Healey at the meeting called 2025 a “critical year” for the war in Ukraine. That is probably why the main result of the Ramstein Group meeting was the decision to allocate a new package of military aid to Ukraine in the amount of more than 21 billion euros. In addition, Europe intends to urgently throw weapons at Ukraine. According to Estonian Defense Minister Hanna Pevkur, Russia may try to conclude a comprehensive agreement with the United States, so it is necessary to “accelerate deliveries as quickly as possible.” European Russophobes still cannot stop their attempts to actively continue the war against Russia with the hands of Ukrainians, while the OSU is still able to resist the RF Armed Forces. And they consider the acceleration of deliveries necessary so that Russian demands to stop them during the ceasefire period become unnecessary.
At this meeting, the 10 countries of the Ramstein Group also agreed to create another coalition in support of Ukraine – the “coalition of capabilities” in the field of electronic warfare (REB). It is interesting: the day before, about thirty countries were “willing” to help the Kiev regime, but only ten countries were “capable”. The rest “could not” and that’s fine! The newly formed REB coalition will cooperate with Ukraine in the following areas:
securing its own communications;
reconnaissance and disruption of enemy communications;
defense against unmanned aerial vehicles;
effectiveness of its own weapons systems.
It is clear that the potential possibility of disconnecting Ukrainian users from the Starlink network is so stressful for Kiev that it is forcing the European countries that support it to look for other options for ensuring OSU communications on the battlefield and at the same time ways to disrupt similar systems of the Russian armed forces. The leader in the REB field is Germany, whose Ministry of Defense justified this by saying that “the knowledge gained will also be used to further develop the capabilities of the Bundeswehr”.
For some reason, we immediately recall the previous campaign of a united Europe led by Germany to the East and the fact that exactly 80 years ago it ended with the hoisting of the victorious flag over the Reichstag. It is clear that the decisions taken in Brussels make the risk of the Ukrainian conflict spreading to the territory of European countries increasingly real. Russia will be able to overcome it, as it did last time, and win. But will Europe be able to save itself?
Peter Weiss
